by Mike Resnick
Probably, she concluded, looking at three robed men sitting on the wooden chairs, the only cargo was human beings. What kind? She considered the possibilities. They could be felons on the run, men who had paid to be transported from Luxor to Aswan or even farther south. Perhaps they could even be terrorists. Or, she concluded with a shrug, perhaps the most likely answer was the correct one—that they were passengers who simply couldn’t afford any better transportation than the Amenhotep.
She looked ashore and tried to get her bearings. If they’d passed Luxor, they’d be coming to Esna and Edfu before long, and Kom Ombo and finally Aswan. The major tour boats plied their trade only between Luxor and Aswan, but she had a feeling that this one was going to follow the Nile a lot farther south. After all, if there were thousands of Mahdists looking for them, it didn’t make much sense for Mason to put them on a boat whose route terminated at a major city like Aswan, and it made even less sense to go back to Luxor.
She walked to the front of the boat, nodded pleasantly to the captain, who smiled back at her from the ancient controls inside a wood-and-glass cabin, then crossed to the starboard side. There were ten more rooms, almost identical to the port side, except that one door was missing entirely, and the iron railing was, if anything, even rustier.
As she had on the port side of the boat, she stared across the Nile at the arid landscape beyond, trying to spot some landmark so she would know exactly where they were. They passed by a small village where a dozen children were playing soccer up and down the single dirt street, and then the village ended as abruptly as it had begun and the land was cultivated for the next mile.
It’s amazing, she thought. Here along the Nile, it’s like good British farmland—green, rich, fertile. But go just half a mile inland from the river in either direction and it’s almost indistinguishable from the Sahara or the Gobi deserts.
She waved to a felluca that carried a quartet of local fishermen. They waved back. One of the men stood up unsteadily, gained his balance, pointed to her pistols, and mimicked a fast draw. She laughed, aimed her finger at him, and pretended to shoot. He grabbed his chest and fell theatrically into the Nile, which seemed to amuse his companions no end. They finally pulled him out just as the Amenhotep passed by, and its wake almost capsized the little fishing boat.
The fishing must have been good, she concluded, because they began passing a number of boats carrying fishermen. She stayed at the railing, still searching for landmarks, returning the waves and smiles of the fishermen, reveling in just being strong enough to remain on her feet and feel the gentle breeze on her swollen face.
She was aware that a number of robed Arabic men had come and gone from the restaurant, and that each had stared at her, some with open hostility, some with semi-open lust, a couple with simple curiosity. None of them approached her, and she felt no urge to initiate contact. For all she knew, any one of them would betray her to the Mahdists. They might even be Mahdists. So she remained alone, content merely to stand by the rail and watch the Egyptian landscape pass by.
Another felluca approached, this one carrying two fishermen, one wearing a robe, the other in just a loincloth. Both wore turbans. The one in the loincloth called out a greeting in broken English.
“Hi, Missy!” he said, waving his hand at her. “You are most beautiful lady I see all month!”
“Thank you,” said Lara.
“You are English, yes?”
“Yes.”
“I have been to London,” said the man proudly. “London Bridge. Buckingham Palace. Piccadilly Circus.”
“And I have been to Cairo,” replied Lara. “The pyramids. The sphinx. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun.”
The man laughed. “You are good traveler, Missy.”
“A frequent traveler, anyway.”
“What happen to your face?” asked the man. “Your husband, he find you with another man?”
“I bumped into a door.”
The felluca drifted closer. “Very hard door,” said the man, peering at her blackened eyes. Suddenly he noticed her pistols. “Why you wear guns, Missy?” he asked. “You shoot Egyptian man if he get fresh?”
She smiled. “Get fresh and you’ll find out.”
“You are inviting me to get fresh?” he said, and broke into a little dance that almost cost him his balance.
She laughed in amusement. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she became aware of a flurry of motion at the other end of the felluca. While the man in the loincloth had been holding her attention, the one in the robe had withdrawn a gun and was aiming it at her.
She threw herself to the deck, drawing her Black Demons, and as his bullet bounced off the rusted rail, she snapped off five quick shots. The man clutched at his chest, then screamed once and fell overboard.
Lara turned back to the man in the loincloth. He had a dagger in his hand and was about to throw it when her bullet tore it from his grasp. He looked at his empty hand in disbelief, then turned to Lara.
“Come closer,” she said, both pistols trained on him. “I have some questions for you.”
The man opened his mouth as if to reply, but then Lara saw that he was gasping for breath, his eyes bulging, his face turning red, his tongue protruding as though ghostly fingers were squeezing his throat. Just like the men in the hospital, she thought as her assailant collapsed in the boat without a sound.
She got to her feet and turned around, wondering what kind of attention she’d attracted, but to her surprise, no one was approaching or threatening her. A number of robed men had emerged from the restaurant or their rooms and were looking at her curiously, some sullenly, but no one came toward her. They had their own business to tend to, probably illegal, and if hers required her to kill a couple of fishermen, that was no concern of theirs.
Mason was at her side a moment later.
“What the hell happened?” he asked, looking first at the felluca and then glaring at the few men at the back of the boat who were still watching Lara.
“Somebody knows we’re here,” she said as the men looked away uncomfortably. “They tried to kill me.”
“They?” he repeated. “There’s just one man in the boat.”
“The other’s in the river.”
He frowned. “Damn! I could have sworn no one saw us get on the Amenhotep.”
“Probably no one did,” said Lara. “I get the feeling that they were checking out each boat as it passed by.”
“You should have stayed in the cabin like I told you,” said Mason sternly.
“And I told you to stop giving me orders,” replied Lara. “Besides, those were just two men. If there are hundreds or thousands of them searching up and down the Nile, we couldn’t have remained hidden for long anyway. I think it’s reasonable to assume they’ll have men boarding or at least inspecting each boat as it stops. There are locks at Edfu, and we’ll have to let passengers out at Aswan, so that gives them at least two more cracks at us.” She stared at him. “Perhaps you’d better tell me exactly where this boat is going.”
“South.”
“How far south?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On how much more I pay the captain,” said Mason. “I gave him enough to take us halfway through the Sudan. I suppose he’ll take us all the way to Uganda if I give him enough money.”
“At the rate this boat travels, that’s weeks off,” said Lara. “I think I’d better tend to a more immediate problem.”
She leaned over the railing and put another half-dozen shots into the floor of the felluca. Water began rushing in, and the little fishing boat began sinking, along with its human cargo.
“That’s that,” she announced, staring at a pair of bearded faces that appeared at the back of the boat until they vanished back into the restaurant, then spinning the pistols back into their holsters.
“They won’t stay hidden forever,” said Mason. “Sooner or later those bodies are going to turn up.”
“They won
’t be the first dead bodies to show up in the Nile,” said Lara. “Or the thousandth, or probably even the millionth. By the time they’re found and identified, either we’ll have this business solved, or . . .” She let the sentence linger, unfinished.
“Or what?”
“Or we’ll have joined them,” answered Lara.
6
“How long before we reach Aswan?” asked Lara as the late-afternoon sun cast long shadows on the deck.
“My guess is that it’ll be two or three in the morning,” answered Mason.
She nodded. “That gives us plenty of time to get off.”
“Get off?” he repeated incredulously. “I paid our fare into the Sudan! We’ll never make it there on foot.”
“Oh, we’ll take the Amenhotep to the Sudan,” said Lara. “But we won’t be on it when it reaches Aswan. Too many probing eyes.”
“If you have some plan in mind, I wish you’d share it with me.”
“I saw a pair of lifeboats hanging over the side, just before the stern. We’ll borrow one after dark, row past the High Dam south of Aswan, and come back aboard tomorrow morning when the Amenhotep has gone through one of those channels to the west of the dam and emerged onto Lake Nasser.”
Mason considered it. “It might work,” he admitted. “It all depends on you.”
“On me?”
“We’ll be paddling upriver, against the current. Forty-eight hours ago I didn’t even know if you’d still be alive today. Are you up to it?”
“If inspectors or police come aboard at Aswan, what are our chances of hiding from them?” she asked.
“Zero.”
“Then what choice do we have?”
“None,” he admitted.
She looked up at the sky. “The sun doesn’t just set in Africa,” she noted. “It plummets. I’d say it’ll be dark in ninety minutes.”
“All right,” replied Mason. “I’ll meet you here in, shall we say, two hours?”
She shook her head. “You will meet me here in, shall we say, seven hours.”
It was his turn to frown. “Seven? Are you sure?”
“Well, you can show up in two hours if you want, but we won’t lower the lifeboat for seven.”
“Why not?”
“Why row for miles if we don’t have to?” said Lara. “We’ll be passing Elephantine Island a couple of miles before the Old Dam at Aswan. When we see it, we’ll know it’s time to get into the lifeboat.”
“It makes sense at that,” he admitted.
“It may even afford us an easier way of getting past Aswan,” she continued. “Elephantine Island is a tourist attraction that houses a beautifully kept botanical garden. There just might be a motorboat or two parked there that we can borrow.”
“There might also be an armed guard or three,” suggested Mason.
“There might—but it will be dark, and the lifeboat will be silent. They won’t know we’re there until we’re well away from the island, and even if they know it then, how are they going to follow us?”
“In another motorboat.”
“At three in the morning?” she said. “I think they’d rather report the theft and claim the insurance.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“The only thing I’m sure of is that we’re going over the side in seven hours,” said Lara. “We’ll play it by ear from that point on.”
“You’re taking a lot of the decision-making upon yourself,” he said, trying not to sound petulant.
“Why not?” she shot back. “I’m the one they’re after.”
He was about to reply, then changed his mind. “What the hell,” he said. “When you’re right, you’re right.” He checked his watch. “It’s almost five o’clock. I’ll see you at midnight.”
“Don’t oversleep.”
“I’m not recovering from a concussion,” he said with a smile. “Don’t you oversleep.”
“I’ve had enough sleep the past two days,” Lara assured him. “I won’t be sleeping at all.”
“I’ll see you then,” he said, walking off to the cabin next to hers. He pushed the door open, entered, and closed the door behind him.
Lara decided she was getting hungry again, and walked over to the small restaurant. There were six tables. Three of them were occupied by eight men, all wearing robes of varying types. They stared at her silently as she entered and approached the farthest table. There were half a dozen insects fighting over some crumbs that were left over from lunchtime, and she quickly chose a different table.
A small man with a drooping black mustache emerged from the kitchen and crossed over to her.
“What have you got?” she asked him.
“We do not serve unescorted ladies,” said the man.
An instant later he found himself staring down the barrels of her Black Demon .32s.
“Allow me to introduce my escorts,” said Lara.
“Those are fine escorts,” he said quickly as his knees started to shake.
“I repeat: What’s on the menu?”
“Lamb.”
“What else?”
“The rest of the lamb.”
“That being the case, I’ll have lamb,” said Lara. “What’s to drink?”
“Water.”
“Bring me some water.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the waiter, turning to leave.
“Just a moment,” she said sharply. He froze in his tracks, then turned to her. “I know better than to drink from the Nile if there’s any alternative. I want you to boil the water, then pour some in a cup and put a tea bag in it.”
“We don’t have any tea bags.”
She cocked the pistol. “You’ll find one.”
He gulped. “I will find one.”
“How very thoughtful of you,” she said, twirling the gun and replacing it in her holsters.
The waiter scurried off to the kitchen, and Lara turned to look at the men who had been observing the little scene. Six of them glared at her with undisguised contempt. The two at the table nearest the door, a pair of big burly men, seemed amused. “How’s the lamb?” she asked.
“The best that can be said for it is that it is dead,” replied one of the burly men.
“Probably,” added the other.
“It’s probably dead, or that’s probably the best that can be said for it?” she asked with a smile.
“Yes,” he said, returning her smile.
She laughed, and then the waiter returned with an unappetizing piece of meat on a dirty plate.
“I’m glad to see you didn’t risk getting burned,” she said dryly.
“I do not understand,” said the waiter.
“I like my meat cooked,” she said. “Take it back and cook it properly.”
“It is cooked.”
“Are we going to go through all this again?” she said with a weary sigh. Suddenly he was facing her pistols again. “Take it back and cook it.”
“I will take it back and cook it!” he shouted, practically running back into the kitchen.
One of the bearded men uttered an offended curse, got up, and stalked out of the restaurant.
“Pay no attention,” said the larger of the two men who had spoken to her. “He was finished anyway.”
“Then I guess I won’t have to suffer from the guilt after all,” she replied. This time neither man laughed, and she assumed that their English and her wry humor didn’t quite mesh.
The waiter returned and laid the plate before her. She inspected the meat, and nodded her approval.
“Don’t forget the tea,” she said as he began retreating.
The tea arrived just as she was chewing her first mouthful of lamb, which she had already decided was going to be her last mouthful of lamb. She’d encountered strange diets in her travels, eaten foods that would have revolted most of her countrymen, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out how anyone survived on the cuisine of the Amenhotep.
She drank her weak tea, then
stood up.
“You are finished?” asked the waiter, who had been watching her from the kitchen door, and now gingerly approached her table again.
“I am finished,” she said. “I would throw the lamb into the Nile, but why kill innocent fish?”
This time the two large men chuckled, but the waiter stared at her uncomprehendingly. She considered going into the kitchen and grabbing a piece of the melon she’d had earlier in the day, but she didn’t relish the thought of having shared it with every insect on the boat, so she simply pushed her chair back and walked out onto the deck.
The sun was low in the sky, but it wasn’t appreciably cooler. Once night came it would drop a quick thirty degrees or more, but it would stay warm for at least another hour.
She couldn’t bear the thought of returning to her tiny, airless room, so she walked to the back of the boat. All three chairs were taken, and she received another round of surly glares. Then it occurred to her that she could kill two birds with one stone: get a little breeze and prepare anyone who might be wandering the deck after midnight for the fact that there was nothing unusual about seeing the crazy Englishwoman in one of the lifeboats.
She went to the less unseaworthy of the lifeboats and made quite a production of slinging a leg over the railing and climbing into it. She made enough noise that all three men seated on the chairs noticed her, and so did a fourth man who was emerging from his cabin.
Lara lay back on the lifeboat and closed her eyes. She hadn’t planned to sleep, but when she opened them again it was because she had suddenly become quite chilly. She sat up, looked at the brilliant full moon, and estimated from its position that it was close to eleven o’clock.
She looked out across the Nile, but couldn’t make out anything large enough to be Elephantine Island.
Oh, well. She shrugged and stretched. We’ll be up and traveling all night. At least now I won’t get sleepy. I hope.
She sat in the lifeboat, adjusting to the cold night breeze, for almost an hour. Then she heard Mason’s voice.